Monday, December 15

VIDEO GAMES

The Origin Of Video Games
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VIDEO GAMES, VIDEO REELS

The Origin Of Video Games

Noah Wardrip-Fruin, University of California, Santa Cruz Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Some people just love to play. Give them a ball, or a pen, or a pile of leaves and they’ll find a way to play with it. In fact, enough people love to play that just about any time someone invents something new, people find a way to play with it. Christopher Strachey didn’t invent modern computers. He didn’t even see one until 1951, several years after others had first created the first ones. But he had been friendly with Alan Turing, who was one of the inventors of modern computers, when he was in college in England. The Mark I is considered the first computer because it could stor...
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Chess is taking over the online video game world – and both are changing from this unlikely pairing
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VIDEO GAMES

Chess is taking over the online video game world – and both are changing from this unlikely pairing

As a global pandemic continues to determine a new normal, tens of thousands of viewers have been tuning in to watch people play chess on a livestreaming website called Twitch.tv. An American chess grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura, along with a number of celebrities of the video game world, is leading a renaissance in the ancient game. While viewers eagerly await Nakamura’s streams to begin, they are treated to a slideshow of memes involving Nakamura’s face superimposed into scenes from pop culture. First a reference to a well-known Japanese animation, next a famous upside-down kiss with Spiderman and finally, Nakamura’s characteristic grin is edited onto the Mona Lisa herself. From Aug. 21 to Sept. 6, Twitch and Chess.com are hosting a tournament, called Pogchamps, where some of the most pop...
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All Out Talent War Set Off By Video Gaming YouTuber
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VIDEO GAMES

All Out Talent War Set Off By Video Gaming YouTuber

Tyler Blevins switched from video site Twitch to Mixer and by doing so shocked the $152bn video-game industry. On Aug. 1, a rail-thin 28-year-old with hair dyed red, white and blue altered the course of video gaming with three words: “The next chapter.” That tweet introduced a video in which Tyler Blevins, known to his fans as Ninja, announced he was moving from Twitch, a video site owned by Amazon.com Inc., to Mixer, a rival site owned by Microsoft Corp. “This is a really good chance to get back in touch with my roots,” Blevins said in the video, a mock press conference in which he answered questions from a talking bush and a cooler filled with the energy drink Red Bull. Blevins’s defection shocked the $152 billion video-game industry. Twitch is the most popu...
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Fortnite’s black hole teases the future of entertainment
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VIDEO GAMES

Fortnite’s black hole teases the future of entertainment

As audiences have embraced on-demand video services, algorithmic feeds, and an ever-growing number of digital “things to do,” our collective attentions have become hyper-fragmented. Yet we know that audiences actually love shared live experiences. Jeopardy is more fun watched with others. Movies are funnier in a packed theater. It’s hard to enjoy sporting events that happened hours earlier The durability of this appeal spans generations: Boomers watched the moon landing together, Generation X witnessed the end of M*A*S*H, and millennials recently collectively viewed (and complained about) the ending to Game of Thrones. Each generation might prefer different content, but we all love to watch it together and live. There’s no better proof of these two points than the recent #FortniteBlackout...
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VIDEO GAMES

Spend the extra to go online with ‘Mario Maker 2’

The original “Super Mario Maker” was praised as one of the best games on Nintendo’s previous console, the late Wii U. The game was so interesting, it almost made me want to buy a Wii U myself, but like most people who play games, I didn’t. At last, more than two years later, “Super Mario Maker 2″ is here, and the tens of millions of us who skipped the Wii U (the Switch has already more than doubled its predecessor’s lifetime sales) have our chance to make our own “Mario” levels. It’s great! It’s also a lot! Creating your own levels and sharing them with your friends (and the world) is the core appeal for “Mario Maker 2,” which expands on the first game’s many features. If you’re the kind of player who wants to spend from 10 minutes to 10 or more hours crafting a bespoke platformer experie...
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5 Reasons Why Mario Is So Popular
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VIDEO GAMES

5 Reasons Why Mario Is So Popular

As far as video games are concerned, one of the most popular characters is known as Mario. Over the 30-year-career of Nintendo, it introduced more than a hundred games for many genres and systems and enjoyed great success. Given below are 5 reasons why Mario Bros runs circles around other games. Read on. Revolutionary style In the gaming world, Mario offers a refreshing change. In each game, Nintendo guides you to a new, exciting adventure. Most of the fresh Mario titles follow the same format set for Super Mario Bros. As a matter of fact, a lot of other games are inspired by the style of Super Mario Bros. This is what this game makes one of the best out there. New format Actually, this product is iconic as it didn't pose the same challenges that other titles did. Throughout the game,...
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VIDEO GAMES

Rewrite history in ‘Imperator: Rome’

They’re complicated, difficult and take forever — 20, 30, 100 hours into one play-through if you’re up for it. “Imperator: Rome” $39.99 for PC All-ages (but very complicated) The grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive are some of my greatest gaming guilty pleasures. These are games where you control a country on the world stage over the course of centuries, and so unlike other guilty pleasures (cookies, cheesy horror movies, sleeping in) there’s nothing sweet and easy about a Paradox game. They’re complicated, difficult and take forever — 20, 30, 100 hours into one play-through if you’re up for it. And I’m up for it. Whole weekends have disappeared down the grand strategy rabbit hole. “Imperator: Rome” is the latest game from Paradox. In it you take control of ancient Rome and gu...
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VIDEO GAMES

Play in Tom Clancy’s world in video game sequel

We hope you love these items as much as we did! GateHouse Media may collect a share of sales from links on this page. Author Tom Clancy passed away more than five years ago, but long before that Ubisoft bought the rights to his name and techno-thriller brand of experience. The latest foray into the Clancyverse is also one of the best. “Tom Clancy’s The Division 2” is the ideal video game sequel: It takes a solid first game (“The Division” from 2016) and improves on it in multiple ways while making few if any new mistakes. It’s not perfect, I still think the bosses soak up too much damage when you fight them, but it’s a lot better than the original, and the original was pretty good. The series takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States in the wake of a bioweapon plague released on t...
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